Month: December 2006

Christmas holidays!

Posted by DarkJedi – December 22, 2006

The time is upon us once again, the angels are singing and the sacred star is shining across the dark sky – It’s Christmas! That means that I’m heading on my Christmas holidays and this page won’t be updated that much (unless I get really bored ;) )…

I have a few stories that I intend to finish and publish as soon as time permits, but don’t expect an entry or two a day :)

To all of you that, like me, are heading into Christmas and the holidays I wish you all a merry Christmas – and the rest of you, those who has to work: Well, merry Christmas to you too…

Rudolf

Greedy Business ™ : Wind of Change?

Posted by DarkJedi – December 20, 2006

While news around the Internet buzzing with the statements made by former Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates, concerning DRM, which he thinks is not yet at a usable stage and currently only an annoyance to customers that should instead buy cds and rip them, there is a lot of other interesting things happening lately…

The biggest and most blunder of fiascoes made by the Greedy Business ™ was Sony BMG’s Rootkit fiasco, where Sony BMG tried to “protect their copyrighted material” by installing rootkits on customers personal computers that opened security holes and gave Sony BMG the route to a lot of illegal personal information – without asking! This case has now been settled in court yielding in a 1,5 million dollar payment for Sony BMG…

While the critics of DRM is slowly reaching mainstream media, with their message from the consumers, the rumors are claiming that Amazon might be the first large scale shop with a Greedy Business ™ member’s catalog behind it that will launch a real alternative to piracy: DRM-free digital music in MP3-format… Werther the MP3 files will be water-marked so that Greedy Business ™ can track them afterwards is as of yet still unknown!

At the same time different approaches to handling the copyright enforcement are being taken into play by the Greedy Business ™… Tools that can “find” illegal content online, suing innocent people out of their money in an attempt to split a family and even giving people the arguments for starting on piracy! Of course the worst part is that there are judges out there who understands nothing about our basic freedoms and even less about computers and digital content. This is clearly the case in Australia, where a judge have ruled that it is as illegal to link to a site that holds illegal content as it is to provide it… In the words of EFA:

“If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you’d done it yourself. Even if you don’t do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that’s an infringing act.”‘”

How can a country call themselves a state of law if this is what judge understand by digital rights? What about Google then? Well asked about it in regards to this case against Mr. Cooper, Mr. Clapperton replied:

“What Cooper was doing is basically the exact same thing that Google does, except Google acts as a search engine for every type of file, while this site only acts as a search engine for MP3 files”

Of course Greedy Business ™ knows that they still haven’t got the traction to pull in Google – The ramifications and especially the press about it will not have the best impact upon the already hampered reputation of the Greedy Business ™. Google is something that your everyday guy uses every day, not what people see as a “big villain” trying to earn tons of cash on drugs, russian mafia activities and copyrighted content…

It is time to understand for the entire Greedy Business ™ that the times are changing for content-providers, as this article states in the LA Times. Often the Greedy Business ™ will claim again and again that if they do not protect their “precious” distribution model no new talents will be developed…. well, perhaps that is not really the case! Perhaps piracy might even be good for the undeveloped talents?

Greedy Business ™ is terrified of this new future, where someone can be discovered using the internet and make their own breakthrough and thereby cut the many parts of the supply chain in two, ending up giving the customers what they want and even at a competitive price! This scenario is the death of the major cartels who need to keep their fat paychecks streaming in every minute for doing nothing but hiring lawyers to sue their customers and their competitors! It is a crazy world, but luckily one that is changing – with or without the Greedy Business ™ … and personally I prefer without ;)

Statue of Liberty

The Console War : Battle for Supply Lines!

Posted by DarkJedi – December 19, 2006

The Wii has been launched in Europe and everything is sold out, The PlayStation 3 won’t launch before march 2007 in Europe (and rumors claim that it will be delayed until September 2007), The Xbox360 is selling like hot bread… The battle of the supply lines is in full motion!

While Microsoft is slowly starting to earn money on their Xbox360 because of lowered production costs the Wii is already earning its owners, Nintendo, a good share of money on each sale! Their Wiimote has already become the best-selling accessory in America, their Christmas sales is through the roof and while Sony has almost grind its production of the PlayStation 3 to a full stop Nintendo is now also having problems meeting demands with their production capabilities! Microsoft, on the other hand, has no problems and while the top-selling title Gears of War crosses the 2 million mark in a record speed its newest hit-title in Japan, Blue Dragon, hit number four on the sales chart in its first week with more than 80.000 copies already sold – claiming a major hit for Microsoft in a country that normally doesn’t buy Xbox-stuff… The future is also in Microsoft’s hands as they have released the XNA game development suite, that will keep the development of games on the XBox360/PC-platform – especially when it comes with an endorsement from Peter Molyneux himself! Microsoft themselves is claiming, in Gamesultra, that their new XNA is far beyond what Sony can do with their PlayStation 3 and Linux… Naturally :)

And while Wii-users are starting to question if the Wii’s software interface could not have been made more smart Nintendo is setting out to boost the already record-high DS sales with a number one hit title, Dragon Quest!

Sony needs to get its supplies up and running! It has already missed the highly important Christmas sales, giving Microsoft an enormous help by giving them the market to themselves for high-def consoles and now the rumors questions whether Sony will be ready for Europe in march 2007… If they also fail this deadline and wait until September 2007 Microsoft will be more than a year and half ahead in the next-gen war, with second-gen titles for their console commonplace and third-gen well on the their way – ready to blow Sony out of the water on launch day in Europe! Sony’s major problem now is what game developer who will indulge Sony in a exclusive title with only a little less than 500.000 consoles sold worldwide, compared to Microsoft’s XBox360, who are now well close to the 9 million mark?

PS3

Vista : Hope, Hype and Holes

Posted by DarkJedi – December 18, 2006

Microsoft is one those companies that people love to hate. If you look at what people criticize them for it is everything from being good at what they do to the fact that they take advantage of their monopoly status. Their latest doing, Microsoft’s Windows Vista, isn’t exactly adding up to the good side of things. Of course Microsoft have done all they can to make a large hype of this new product, which have been so many years late. Not everyone though likes it when you mix statistics and marketing hype :)

The hype Microsoft is trying to create is that people should upgrade to Vista for various reasons, primary security, which by many is already doomed a lost cause. It isn’t always easy to promote a new operating system, when you have stolen almost everything from Mac OS X, instead of innovating yourself and to many users – and especially companies, they see little reason to spend all those money on software and hardware upgrades, education and of course the many problems that always ensues when things aren’t working well on the new platform (like for example Microsoft’s own SQL Server)…

At the same time Microsoft have tried to squeeze a bit more money out of people by raising the prices and have given much more focus on keeping piracy at bay! While everyone with a sane mind knows that it would only be a matter of days, perhaps even hours, before that attempt only remains to annoy the paying customers Microsoft isn’t about to start understanding their customers at this stage! They already hurried out of bed and plugged the first announced hole in Vista, but that was only the first warning of things to come (and not without problems for paying customers, of course). Naturally it took less than a week to make a permanent crack to avoid the many anti-piracy schemes in Vista, but that doesn’t change the pain that remains for the paying common folk, who does not want to install a pirated version!

Meanwhile many digital rights aware persons are starting to cry wolf, as they see the many restrictions in Vista as a danger – especially the Trusted Computing Platform, which has yet to be taken into real use! The FSF has launched a campaign, called BadVista, to show users what lies underneath the “fine garments” of Vista! Of course if all you want is the look of Vista it won’t take long before Linux can take the look you need. Already you can “play” Windows XP in Linux, if that’s your fancy! Choice is always nice to have ;)

Vista Logo

Greedy Business ™ : Special Offer – Get One / Pay for Two!

Posted by DarkJedi – December 15, 2006

When Microsoft chose to enter the Digital Music Player market with their overzealous Zune they probably didn’t expect so much trouble with the Greedy Business ™. They started a trend by paying a “compensation tax” to one of the four cartel-members of Greedy Business ™, Universal. Of course the good part of that for Microsoft is that they will bring more pressure on Apple’s Digital Music business as the Greedy Business ™ will go after Apple now, but they probably thought that you could give a little compensation to the Greedy Business ™ and then be rid of them… Dear Microsoft:There is a reason why we call them Greedy Business ™ instead of the Music Business Cartels! The other members of the cartel have already begun to talk about their demands for compensation as it is not only Universal’s music that can be put on the harddrives of the Zune… Well, why not go all the way, guys? Books can also be placed on the Zune in digital format, as well as movies, photos, poems, recipies, designs, technical blueprints, etc. The entire world should get compensation as well… The end-user price for the Zune then: 7999$ …

Well, not only the other members of the Greedy Business ™ is requiring more money… They also want to be compensated twice, as the Zune can also be used as a digital recording device from analog FM radio… Buy One, Pay for Two! Perhaps the department of homeland security, NSA and CIA should also get the government in USA to request a compensation as the Zune could also be used in espionage with its digital recording capabilities…?

Bill Gates is already beginning to see the problem with the path he chose for Microsoft years ago, when they began to help the Greedy Business ™ with implementing DRM in Windows! He is now urging consumers to buy CDs instead and ripping them… Just a month after Microsoft launched the Zune, which uses DRM’d music! I guess he finally realized why we call the music business the Greedy Business ™ and why consumers are leaving the legal music trade – heading for pirated versions of the music, where they can get the non-DRM-infected versions … and at a better price :)

I do not like piracy and I buy my own CDs, but less and less, since I will never again pay for a CD that contains DRM! I will never buy digital music online unless I can get in DRM-free, like the highly popular service offered by eMusic… The Greedy Business ™ is starting, albeit slowly, to see this and even accept this! I want a true alternative to crippled music, that cannot be used as I need it to and consumes too much power on my portable music device! Until then my consuming of music will continue to decline, I promise you!

Zune

The Console War : Sony’s Dirty Games!

Posted by DarkJedi – December 14, 2006

There hasn’t been much positive news from Sony since the launch of their PlayStation 3 during this next-gen console war. More problems kept occurring: Upscaling didn’t work, playing the old games didn’t work as promised, The PlayStation Network wasn’t ready for prime-time and most important of all: They couldn’t produce nearly any PlayStation 3s…

Well, it isn’t over for Sony… Their lousy sales on PSP could not be denied, while the sales of the Wii and the DS were on fire! The Christmas season is extremely important so Sony needed to act… And what do they do? They make up a giant lie about fanboys for the PSP, that is nothing but paid actors from a marketing firm… How low can you go?! They even thought people wouldn’t find out! Well, again a lot of things can be said about Sony, but ignorant of their customers and fans has always been one of them!

Just when you thought Sony had overcome most of their problems with upscaling issues and backwards comp. problems another problem appears with their “revolutionary” PlayStation 3… PS2-games are filled with jagged edges everywhere – looking even worse than they did on the PlayStation 2… Why would anyone pay that much money for a PlayStation 3, when things look worse than on a PlayStation 2?! This is particularly problematic for Sony, who claimed to have included an entire PS2-board into the PlayStation 3 to make it play the old games like any PS2 would… Well, another day – another lie!

It is somewhat sad that Sony has succumbed to lies and false hype-marketing in order to keep people waiting for their new console! Naturally they can’t compete on simple game titles and game play as they would be beaten hands down by the Xbox360 and the Wii… In this war they are the dirty players – and they are still loosing! Wake up from your customer-arrogance, Sony… Smell the coffee and start earning your money from making good products instead of making bad marketing!

PS3

Where is the innovation, Microsoft?

Posted by DarkJedi – December 14, 2006

After an extraordinary long time under development Vista finally shipped last month from the Microsoft’s Software Factory. A lot has happened since the last version of Windows, XP. Google appeared, MySpace appeared, Skype appeared, YouTube appeared, iTunes appeared… The world has changed in so many ways! But what happened to Microsoft during those years? Where did the innovation go?…

Back in the 90′ies Microsoft had its great browser-battle with Netscape and won hands down by using a bit of innovation and a lot of dirty tricks only available to monopolists. After that they relaxed, thinking that they had this Internet-thing under control – It would no longer be a threat, and they could easily keep standards from being implemented in the real world as long as everybody used their non-standard compliant browser… Then came Mozilla, first with its Mozilla Browser-suite, but soon after FireFox… A standard-complaint browser that used innovation and was available across different platforms! Its popularity grew, and suddenly Microsoft was forced to awaken its Internet Explorer team once again from the Holy grave! What did they do? They forgot about innovation and just copied the features FireFox (and Opera) have had for many years… No more need for innovation – just playing catch-up!

Then Apple launched their Mac OS X, which was an easy to use, safe operating system, that looked damn good and suddenly Windows XP started looking like an ugly duckling… Even compared to Linux XP was years behind…. What did Microsoft do? They copied practical every effect from Mac OS X into Windows Vista… No need for innovation here – just playing catch-up!

The digital music sales was nothing to worry about back in the good old days. There were no real shops, only piracy! Then came iTunes from Apple, coupled with the iPods, and suddenly a giant market, which now sits on 6% of the total music sales in America, was born. What did Microsoft do? Everything humanly possible… But not with innovation! They created a music shop with MTV and integrated it into Windows by default – trying to use the same dirty monopolist trick from the battle with Netscape… But to no real avail! What does Microsoft do then? They screw their own format and their own customers by making the Zune with the single purpose of destroying the market for Apple – not taking a real slice for themselves! How do they do that? By ensuring to pay compensation to the Greedy Business ™ and thereby giving them the ammunition to go and demand more money from Apple, quickly destroying Apple’s market by undermining it … Not exactly innovation!

Then comes OpenOffice.org and starts pushing for open standards in documents, especially from the public sector and government, which should not force every citizen to buy Microsoft’s prosperous Office series in order to read official documents. They succeed in getting the Open Document Format (ODF) accepted as an ISO standard, but what does Microsoft do? Instead of supporting this format they try to create their own in Open XML, which allows them to claim openness without letting go of control over people documents and thereby their data… Not in any way innovative!

Microsoft is earning loads of money on its Windows and Office products and needs to start innovating again… It isn’t like they haven’t got enough personnel employed or are in lack of skilled programmers! Still there is something very wrong with their development structure, as Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 3 development leader, Brad Silverberg acknowledges! They make too many basic security flaws in their products and a company that size and with that status and influence should act more appropriate and try to innovate and develop – instead of exploiting their monopoly and copying their competitors in every way possible!

Microsoft needs to look deep into itself, the company, its development model, its image and start thinking about how to change things! They need to find a way to innovate again, to compete on equal terms – on quality and innovation, not on monopolistic status! A company with that history and so much capabilities should be able to do more and better! They should be a market leader, not just a market follower .. and a slow one at that! Get your act together, Microsoft – and perhaps you can re-earn the trust you once had among developers!

Microsoft

Greedy Business ™ : DRM-Infected music sales failing…

Posted by DarkJedi – December 12, 2006

Apple was touted as the savior of music, and the leader to show the aging Greedy Business ™ how to make money on digital music, which they at the time claimed was not possible because of piracy! Apple made a large success story with their iTunes and iPod combination and dozen by dozen of competitors tried to copy the concept, but to no avail. Then came AllOfMP3.com, who allowed the public to pay less and get what the public could not get anywhere else: Non-DRM-infected music… The Greedy Business ™ was quick to claim that AllOfMP3 was piracy and in every way illegal. There were, however, two major problem with AllOfMP3:

  1. People could now try music, they thought was legal, without DRM and all the hassle DRM brings!
  2. AllOfMP3 was perfectly legal in Russia (and actually still is as the new law is not in effect enough)

When digital music sales flattened a bit in 2005 the Greedy Business ™ was quick to blame piracy once again and tried to use this to force variable prices on iTunes, which would mean higher prices for customers and higher profits for Greedy Business ™… However the real problem was that people wanted more choice, better bitrates and no DRM! (and the CD is no longer the answer – the CD is slowly getting to the end of the line!)

Now the problem is appearing again as Apple’s iTunes sales shows decreasing sales! This time, however, it is clear to everyone that DRM is still to blame – not piracy! Greedy Business ™ has already admitted to this indirectly by slowly starting to offer DRM-free MP3 files, as I have already commented on in a earlier post! It only took Greedy Business ™ a decade to begin to understand the public and all they had to do was to read a single customer comment or two on the Internet to see how apparent the problem is: There is no real alternative to piracy if you do not want DRM or want high quality music… none! Apart from AllOfMP3, the black sheep who seems to be the only company in the business that understands customers!

ipod.jpg

Vista : Trouble during takeoff!

Posted by DarkJedi – December 12, 2006

While Microsoft’s lousy coding skills time and time again gives a pretty good reason in upgrading to Vista by its “more secure” standard there are many opinions on this new Operating System, that Microsoft touts as a giant revolution in software! iTWire can’t see the reason for companies to upgrade, and have chosen not to upgrade for several reasons! This is of course extremely bad news for Microsoft, who needs a quick adaptation, as they have spent more than double the time expected on this operating system. Naturally there is a lot businesses in the IT-sector that is now earning money on the launch of a new Windows version, but currently it isn’t Microsoft.

This time around Microsoft have gone to even greater expense to reduce piracy, in order to turn a higher profit on Vista. Unfortunately the battle against piracy is always pretty much in vain, and always ends up being a pest for the paying customers instead… This time around the pirates were a lot faster than Microsoft expected, and what is left is a lot of activation trouble for the paying customers, while the pirated version work without problems!

Naturally Microsoft’s standard in coding haven’t improved much, and many problems have already been found in Vista – even before it has reached the private user! One example is the hibernation problem that only further ensures that many users and especially companies will wait and see with Vista – probably wait out a service pack or two before upgrading! This is a major problem for money-hungry Microsoft and what does the company do? According to Information Week they have made an internal document describing how their strategies, their hype and the many lies that need to reach users and businesses in order for Vista and Microsoft to succeed! Werther the document is genuine is not for me to evaluate, but if its true it tells the story of a sad state in a company that have forgotten all about innovation! The only arena where Microsoft is still doing some innovation is in gaming… The recently released XNA development kit proves that! If only they could use that innovation and couple it with fair marketing and more openness in the its operating systems the future for Microsoft would be a bit more bright – and perhaps that might even turn the public opinion for them!

Vista Logo

Why didn’t I think of that?

Posted by DarkJedi – December 12, 2006

I didn’t even know that the genre of Roller Coaster Massacres existed, but this is bloody brilliant idea!

Me - playing cards